Sunday, March 8, 2015

Key Star Trek Producers Pass Away

Star Trek has lost three key figureheads in a very short span of time.

Major media outlets picked up the passing of Leonard Nimoy on February 27, but not much press was generated February 24 over the death at age 75 of Maurice Hurley, a producer/writer of Star Trek: The Next Generation during it first two seasons. Mr. Hurley will likely be remembered by Trek fans for his creation of the classic villains the Borg and co-creating Data's brother Lore.

If you watched sci fi TV in the 1970s, you owe a debt to producer/writer Harve Bennett, who passed away on March 4 at the age of 84. He worked on series such as The Invisible Man, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. But Star Trek fans owe Mr. Bennett a huge debt of gratitude for saving ST by producing 1982's Star Trek II, which is seen by many fans as the best of the ST feature films. The popularity of the Trek films overseen by Mr. Bennett (ST II - IV) led to ST's re-emergence on TV with ST: TNG in 1987.